How We Unravel
by PrinceDarcy
Summary: L's sudden death brings the Kira investigation to an abrupt pause, while the task force is left to pick up the pieces. Light Yagami has to work through his own grief and regret in the aftermath to honor one of L's last requests—that Light, in the event of his death, would succeed him as L. (Major character death.)
1. Chapter 1

When singularly important people passed away, such events always had the tendency to be publicized to the point that it seemed as if the entire world wept for them in unison. When the renowned physicist John Dalton died in 1844, forty thousand people came to view his coffin over four days. When Princess Diana died in 1997, more than thirty-two million people watched her funeral on television. Pope John Paul II's in 2005 was viewed by more than a billion.

The people who attended the funeral of the world's three greatest detectives—the only people alive who even knew that he was no longer in this world—had been able to get to the cemetery with two average-sized cars and one motorbike between them. To the world that had owed so much to the person they knew as L, his death would go as unremarked as the other tens of thousands that came every day. Even the highest members of the ICPO would have passed October 16th, 2007 quietly unaware of L's death, just as they would have been of that of any other nameless DOA in the out of the way Japanese hospital he'd been declared dead en route to.

To the world at large, L's death would mean nothing.

To the eight people who stood over his nameless headstone on the foggy morning of the 19th, it meant one of the worst tragedies that could have possibly struck them.

To Light Yagami, it meant his life falling apart at the seams.

He hadn't spoken more than ten words since he'd frantically called for Watari that fateful night, all but screaming into his cell phone that he'd woken up to find that L wasn't breathing, he didn't have a pulse, call an ambulance, do _something,_ _please, help_ —to no avail. The ambulance came, Watari had wrenched Light away from L and unlocked one end of the handcuffs, had helped the EMTs load L onto a stretcher, followed them out of the building... and returned not an hour later, face somber and drawn, to give the task force the bad news.

There had been nothing they could do. It didn't even take getting to the hospital to determine that. At just past four in the morning on the 16th, L had died of sudden, unexplained heart failure in his sleep. L, Ryuzaki, Hideki Ryuga, Eraldo Coil, Marie Deneuve, the hundreds of other aliases he'd amassed, people he'd been—extinguished like a blown out candle.

Everyone fell to pieces when they got the news; Matsuda screamed and swore that they'd all be next, that Kira had gotten them and it was all over. Mogi was ghost-white and looked almost ill, Soichiro seemed barely able to keep himself from joining in Matsuda's panic, and Light—

Light felt like he was watching himself from outside his body, seeing himself crumple against his father's shoulder like he simply didn't have the will to stand, shaking and fighting back tears and swatting away the hand of anyone who tried to take away the handcuff still dangling from his wrist. He didn't scream like Matsuda, or say much of anything to anyone. All he heard himself say was one single sentence: "We were supposed to die together."

No one slept any more that night. Watari made tea and tried to keep things as calm as he could manage; in the fog of shock and fear and sadness that Light found himself blind in the middle of, one of the sensations he could remember the most was the rattling sound of cups on saucers as the old man set them down with trembling hands. Much of the rest was a blur. The passage of time felt too slow and too fast all the same, his body felt disconnected from him, like he was floating away from it, leaving it slumped against his father's side on the couch. The numbness was not in any way preferable to the alternative. It was a numbness like sleep paralysis, a numbness that came with a deep-rooted terror of how it would feel when the numbness was gone. At some point someone managed to remove the handcuff off his wrist, and though he didn't notice when hit happened, he was keenly aware of its absence once it was gone.

Three months with the cuff never being off for more than a few minutes at a time, three months of never being more than six feet away from L, of being with him twenty-four hours a day, and he would never even see the man again. It seemed like a cruel joke, like something that simply couldn't be real.

How many times had they repeated the same promise? Just the day before, L had looked right at him and said _as long as we're handcuffed together, we share the same fate. If I die, so do you._ Light had believed it. He'd believed it every time he'd sworn it himself. Who had he been kidding? Had he thought that somehow if L's heart were to stop, his would just know to do the same thing in turn?

 _I could make it,_ his mind said. _A knife, a gun, a rope, twenty-three stories from the roof to the ground. I promised we'd die together._

Sometime after sunrise, Soichiro stepped away from Light, calling home to talk to Sachiko and Sayu. He put the phone on speaker and held it so Light could hear them, even though he _couldn't_ talk to them himself even if he had been able to force himself to speak. He thought very hard about how much he loved them, and told himself that was why it was good that he hadn't died. Matsuda sat with him then and Light let him rub circles against his back, even though the other's hands were still shaky.

Light was the only one not to eat breakfast, though for once he could tell that he wasn't the only one who didn't want to. Watari had only just cleared away the dishes when Aiber and Wedy arrived, both stricken. Wedy's makeup was streaked under her sunglasses and she smoked too many cigarettes. The air was heavy with smoke and Light felt dizzy. Aiber kept cursing in what Light thought might have been Italian and pacing around the room like he thought he'd find L hiding behind some piece of furniture.

They both asked the same question: "Was it Kira?"

 _Was it Kira? Was it Light Yagami?_

Soichiro, Matsuda and Wedy, surprisingly, went to Misa's room after that—he could see strange looks in their eyes when he didn't even try to stand to come with them, but even if seeing Misa were usually a positive, which it wasn't, being there in person to give her the news was too much. Far too much.

Mogi and Aiber gave Light some space, at least, but he could feel that their eyes weren't leaving him. In a way he was grateful, but around that little grain of gratitude was a swirling mass of regret and guilt and pain all wrapped up in that strange dull daze, filling him with the urge to disappear, to hide away somewhere, curl in on himself and wait for everything to go away. No one would allow that. He couldn't allow that. What part of him was lucid enough to think that through reminded him of that—over and over and over. _I'm alive. I'm alive. I have to be alive._

Watari brought Light two cups of coffee and nearly dropped the second as he took it to Aiber instead of where he'd set it, a few feet to Light's left. There was no one there to drink it. There wasn't going to be. Light's head spun, and he drank his coffee down despite the fact that at some point he'd put far too much sugar in it.

He looked up at the monitors and watched Misa's room, saw her facial expressions from a dozen different angles as his father and Matsuda told her what had happened. Disbelief, first. ( _"You're kidding, right? He's still out there with Light, isn't he?"_ ) Then realization, fear. ( _"No... No way..."_ ) Then a slow, dramatic collapse in to tears. Light was sure she had to be putting on an act, at least partially—sure, she'd declared L her friend yesterday ( _yesterday, yesterday, he was alive just yesterday_ ) but would that be enough to undo all that resentment? Or could she be...

 _No._

Matsuda smiled a smile that Light could see was forced from all those angles, quickly rushing to Misa's side to make some attempt at cheering her up. Wedy cradled her head against her chest, stroking Misa's hair. "It's alright, honey, just let it out. Everything's going to be fine, okay?"

Even Misa, amid her theatrical sobs and whimpers, peeped out the same miserable question. "Did Kira kill him?"

 _Did Kira kill Ryuzaki? Did I kill Ryuzaki?_ Light clenched his fists, swallowing down another mouthful of sickly-sweet coffee, told himself _that_ was why it was good that he hadn't died. _This is the only way I'll prove to everyone I was innocent._

 _Am I?_

"I didn't kill him," he said to empty air, to Watari, to Mogi and Aiber, to himself. To convince someone.

Mogi quietly turned off the monitors, and the room fell into a dead silence that barely broke for hours after. Watari seemed to be handling everything that had to be dealt with, and everyone else began to drift off to their own corners of the building. Soichiro personally appointed himself (and occasionally Matsuda, if he couldn't be there) to the task of not leaving Light in a room alone for more than a few minutes at a time when it was at all possible. He convinced himself to focus on that little bit of gratitude, to understand that it was because they cared about him. Rationalize it: only L had still been suspicious of him. When the others said "Kira" they meant "this Kira," anyway. Even L knew that Light wasn't _still_ Kira, at least. The others didn't think he had been in the first place. They didn't want him to die. He shouldn't die. Right?

The autopsy report should have set their minds at ease, and a month prior it would have; it hadn't been a _heart attack,_ specifically, but simply a rare, fatal complication of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy—a heart condition L would have had to have had all his life. Any other time in the investigation, everyone would have been satisfied that it wasn't Kira's doing, but when they'd heard it said aloud that the current Kira could kill a man with high blood pressure by causing a stroke, could not only kill with disease but kill with a complication of an existing disease... the only comfort that came was that no one, even Watari, had known about L's condition until the coroner reported it to them.

It was easy to tell that that didn't mean much to anyone. It felt like there was a dark cloud over the task force that couldn't be shaken. Progress had abruptly stopped on the case; no one seemed to have the energy to do much work. Watching the others try and put up some semblance of effort, to Light, just looked like a child moving toys through a dollhouse. Everyone moved from place to place, acted like they were working, but nothing of any consequence happened as they did it. Like it was all just a game.

By the time Light was staring down the white cross that served as the only marker of L's existence in this world, he had just passed his third sleepless night. The others had started to piece themselves back together, but he was still reeling—starting to drift off at night and snapping awake to the sound of L's voice, the tapping of his spidery fingers on his laptop keyboard, the tugging of the chain, and then... nothing. Darkness and the other side of the bed cold to the touch. He'd given up trying to sleep all together. Dreamlike as the days had felt, or nightmarelike, he was beginning to realize that no good night's sleep would fix it.

Waking up wouldn't mean L being back. It'd mean facing the fact that he would still be gone.

His black suit was too big on him, and he'd spent far too long in front of a full length mirror as he'd gotten dressed for the funeral, looking over his body in the way he'd been avoiding since junior high just in hopes that he could make it feel more like his. His bony arms; his fault. His prominent ribs; his fault. The scarring abrasions around his wrists; L's fault. The bruise-purple dark circles under his eyes; both their faults.

 _This is me,_ he told himself. _I'm alive. I have to be._ He put on his suit, combed his hair and left his bottle of concealer in the cabinet. Taking it out would mean touching L's things, and there was no point hiding the exhaustion the task force had more than enough evidence for already.

Misa, dressed in a gothic black dress with a veil over her face, had wept against his arm from the moment he'd sat by her side in the car. Freeing his arm from her grip was more than his body seemed to want to do, and if her sorrow truly was genuine (and he couldn't explain his unshakable feeling that it _couldn't_ be, so it _had_ to be, didn't it?) it felt cruel to deny her the comfort of having another warm body to cling to at a time like this. The feeling of her leaning against him, the sound of her quiet little sobs, it was all strangely grounding. A reminder he was still there and real and present.

"Ryuzaki," Watari began, and Light wondered in the back of his mind if he'd prepared a proper speech. "We are all gathered here for a private funeral, just as you requested. Aside from those here at this very moment, no one in the world is aware of your passing. L will live on, as I have always promised you. In doing you this final service, I hope I've allowed you to truly be at peace."

Soichiro stepped forward in Watari's place, and as the old man retreated to the back of the crowd, Light thought he saw him dab at his eyes with a handkerchief.

"It's as he says, Ryuzaki. The public has no idea you're gone, and to the best of our abilities, we'll keep it that way. We're going to make it appear that you're still alive, leading us and other police agencies around the world. This is far from over." Matsuda sniffled loudly from where he stood to Light's side, his shoulders shaking so visibly that Light could catch the movement in his peripheral vision. The sorrow in his father's voice chilled him to the bone like a cold gust of wind; he trembled and rubbed at the still-raw band around his wrist to distract himself from the icy ache in his heart. "We swear to you, as detectives, as human beings, as your _friends,_ that we will stop Yotsuba and catch Kira. You once promised us that you would bring us Kira's head, and I give you my word that we will do the same for you. My only regret is that you won't be here to see it. May you rest in peace."

"That's right," Light heard himself say. The others started at the sound of his voice, as if unsure they were hearing what they thought they had. He understood their surprise; it had been three days of silence from him. If not for their reactions, he wouldn't have believed he was speaking aloud himself. "We'll catch Kira, and put an end to this case. We'll avenge everyone who's lost their lives to this, and... that will be our last gift to Ryuzaki."

Misa let go of his arm as he stepped forward towards the tombstone, his body moving by its own accord.

"I promised you that as long as we were handcuffed together, we would die together. I couldn't keep that promise, Ryuzaki, so let me make a different one now," Light said, finding strength in his words that he wasn't sure he still had. His voice was shaking, but he clenched his hands, took a deep breath—and tried to fill himself with determination. "Wherever you are now, I swear that I won't join you there until we've put an end to Kira. I'll do everything I can, no matter how difficult it is, and... I'll live to see Kira arrested. You have my word."

Aiber left a large bouquet of flowers on the grave as he left, murmuring a few words in Italian that Light couldn't understand. Wedy, for the first time since Light had met her, took off her sunglasses and left them with the flowers. ("For Marie," she said. No one asked for further explanation.)

Light couldn't bring himself to move from the grave with the rest of them, not at first. Matsuda called for him, but Soichiro ushered him onward, leading Misa by the shoulder. The sound of their footsteps trailed off and left him in silence.

 _I bet you wouldn't have believed a word of that, Ryuzaki. You'd say that that's exactly what Kira would say, making a promise a like that to get sympathy from the rest of the task force. I wish you were here to tell me that. I never thought I'd miss being accused of being Kira so much._

 _I don't know if I believe in myself either._

"Yagami-san?"

Watari's voice pulled Light back from his retreat into his head, and he shook himself free of that reverie as best as he could.

"Watari." The old man looked up at him with something wistful in his eyes—his eyes that were unmistakably reddened and damp. He put a gentle hand on Light's arm.

"The others have returned to headquarters. It's about time I bring you back, Yagami-san, before they begin to worry too much about you," he said, voice quiet and kind. He put a gentle hand on Light's arm. "Come."

Light allowed himself to be led to the car, the strange numb feeling returning as he turned his back on L's final resting place. Watari kept him steady, something distinctly fatherly in his demeanor that only grew more obvious when he spoke again.

"I met L when he was only a small child," he said, giving a small smile through what seemed to be fresh tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. "He had just lost his parents, and he had narrowly escaped death himself. Looking at that little boy for the first time, I couldn't have predicted anything that would come in the years after—least of all that I would live to bury him."

 _Why are you telling me all this?_ Light thought.

"I'm sorry," he said instead.

"So am I." Watari opened the passenger side door of the car for Light once they reached the black limousine, bowing his head. "Please."

Light took his seat and did up his seat belt as Watari got into the driver's seat next to him, drying his eyes with his handkerchief once more before starting the car. The fog was beginning to break, sunlight peeking through cracks in the clouds. The world did not weep for L any more than most of its people did. Watari was silent for a long time before he spoke again.

"There is something I must ask of you, Yagami-san," he said, eyes fixed straight ahead on the road. "Something that can still be done for Ryuzaki—something that only you can do."

"Something only I can do?" Light repeated, trying to force himself to think clearly. What was there that could still be done? What was it that was exclusive to him? Catching Kira, and everything leading up to that, would be a team effort. But...

"Ryuzaki asked something of you before his passing." Watari's grip tightened on the steering wheel, then loosened again in an instant. "It was one of his last requests."

Light blinked. "For me to succeed him as L...? But he only meant that as—"

"His first intention may have been to get a reaction out of you, Yagami-san, but that doesn't change that there was something genuine in his request. The task force may act as if they are still being lead by Ryuzaki, but without a true leader—without someone acting as L—they will fail. Kira will never be brought to justice. Ryuzaki believed that you were the most capable to become L, and the others will need you to fill that role."

Light fell silent, his heart pounding against his ribs. _Take over as L? I already told him I didn't want his title, that I couldn't—how could anyone expect me to do it?_

 _Is that really what Ryuzaki would want?_

Watari cast a sympathetic look at him as they slowed to a halt at a red light.

"I understand if you cannot make your decision now. This is—"

"I'll do it," Light said suddenly, the worst out of his mouth before he could stop himself from saying them. "For Ryuzaki. I'll do it."

 _And if I fail... If Kira gets away because of me... I wonder if I'll be able to face Ryuzaki in the afterlife._

"Very well," Watari said, and squeezed Light's shoulder. "It will be an honor to work with you, L."

Light nodded, clenched his hands, and reminded himself to breathe.


	2. Chapter 2

Returning to headquarters that day was the second time Light had actually had to enter the building through the proper entrance, after having spent the last three months entirely indoors, save for the occasional excursion to the roof for fresh air. He and L had never gone out in all that time, with L's refusal to remove the handcuffs and Light's unwillingness to go out in public with them on. It felt like a strange thing to notice, but as Watari checked them in through security, he found himself all the more aware of the absence. The last time he had been through these doors, he'd just been getting used to the handcuffs, and to having L at his side twenty-four hours a day, but he'd been happy. He'd been excited to have their new base of operations, to be able to crack down on Kira with the best technology and resources available.

It had taken three months to make any considerable headway, and now L was gone. No, Ryuzaki was gone. Light was L, now, coming to headquarters _as_ L for the first time.

He rubbed at his wrist and felt the dull sting. There were no pictures of L, no saved video footage, they'd have to get rid of his personal belongings at some point, too—and eventually one of the only tangible pieces of evidence Light could look to to remember L by would be a scar.

Maybe that was fitting, after everything.

The elevator ride up felt unnaturally long, the walls feeling far closer than they were during the ride down. He put his back to the wall and watched the numbers go up, up, up as they climbed to the correct floor.

"Once you've had a few minutes with the others, Yagami-san, I'll have to request you start packing," Watari said, matter-of-fact. He caught Light's confusion with a single glance and continued, remarkably patient. "It's a bit sudden, but there's something quite urgent that will require us to leave the country. Have you flown before, Yagami-san?"

"Just once," Light said, ignoring that his mouth suddenly felt very dry. _What am I going to have to do?_

"If you'd prefer, I can ensure you sleep for most of the flight. It will only be about two days—perhaps three, at the most. If we leave this morning, we'll still arrive in England in time. Better to deal with this quickly..."

England. L had lived in England for a while, hadn't he? It must be something to do with him. With _Ryuzaki,_ not with any case in particular... Light doubted L had been occupied with anything other than the Kira case before he died, now that things seemed to be reaching their climax.

But even though they'd lived three months of their lives in each other's constant company, Light still didn't know nearly enough about whoever L really was to really know for sure. He'd been so afraid to ask anything that would make L think he was trying to get his real name, but in the end it didn't even matter. Even if the answers he'd gotten were fake, it would have been better than nothing, but now L wasn't around to ask, and Light felt like he knew nothing about him.

His friend, companion, antagonist—had, in the end, been a stranger. Light had definitely respected and admired L, and could even say he'd _liked_ him, but more than anything he'd just gotten used to him. Through the positive and negative, L had been a constant fixture in his life for three months, and a frequent part of it for longer before that. Mere-exposure effect suggested that one could develop an attachment to something just by being around it... Even if that was all it was, L's death had still left him feeling like he was missing a limb.

"Understood." Light nodded, and the elevator came to a halt. Maybe England would give him answers, and he'd take the flight and the feeling that _we're wasting time, we have to catch Kira, I promised,_ for that alone. And whatever Watari wanted to take him there for, there had to be some reason for it. Something important. Something time sensitive. He couldn't let himself ruin whatever that was. His first act as L couldn't be letting Watari down.

The suitcase Watari gave him was that shade of gray that Light knew was probably once white and smelled like stale cigarette smoke. He changed out of his suit and packed up his toiletries and a few days' clean clothes, trying to keep himself from even looking at L's stuff as much as he could manage. At least he'd always been neat, keeping his clothes and that one ratty pair of shoes away where things wouldn't get mixed in with Light's, but somehow Light found himself pulling down one of L's worn white t-shirts by habit anyway. As if they were getting dressed together again and he'd turn around and hand it to him.

Even if England gave him nothing else, he hoped a change of scenery, a place he'd never been before and had certainly never been with L, would make it easier to go back to living his life the way he had before all this.

Though the thought of going back to only having his own thoughts as company wasn't a particularly comforting one—and that reservation was its own proof of concept not long after the private jet Watari had arranged for the flight took off.

Light had, in recent years, developed a complicated relationship with heights.

To be accurate, it wasn't simply being in high places that put him off, but the concept of not having control over when his feet were and weren't firmly planted on the ground. Not that he imagined he'd ever be too keen to spend too much time on a rooftop close to the edge (certainly not _too_ close to the edge) or any balconies where he couldn't keep his back to a wall, but if he could see ground all around him and it was solid beneath his feet, it usually spared him the worst of the discomfort.

The last time he'd been on an airplane had been long before this was a problem. He hoped that the contained nature of an airplane's cabin would prevent the flight from _being_ a problem.

If anything, it made it worse. Looking out the window made his head spin—they were so high up, the ground was so far, looking out made it seem like there was nothing below him, all he could think of were stories of plane crashes and people being sucked out through the windows and other untimely and unpleasant ends he could meet beyond just falling. But the cabin had one other flaw that made the other option, simply avoiding the windows, equally impossible.

It was barely any bigger than his cell had been, and without all but pressing his face to the small windows, it was practically like they weren't there at all. The air was stale and processed and he felt suffocated within a minute, utterly trapped by the fifteenth, trying to walk around to give himself some illusion of space made him far too dizzy to even try for more than a moment, and the only escape from the cabin was the bathroom, which was smaller than the closet at headquarters. The moment he'd shut himself in there he'd had to scramble for the door handle to let himself out just to keep his heart from pounding its way out of his chest. And as Watari had elected to start off the flight in the cockpit with the pilot, there wasn't anything to distract him.

What pride he had wasn't enough to keep him in his seat for the next twelve hours without relief, however, and he didn't even bother trying to bear with it after that. He forced himself to stay on his feet, taking unsteady steps towards the door to the cockpit, and moved to open the door just as Watari opened it himself. Apparently Light looked as bad as he felt, or the old man simply had a good read on that sort of thing, as he took him by the arm and sat him down in a forward facing seat the moment he got a look at his face.

"This is going to be a long trip, Yagami-san," Watari said, retrieving what seemed to be a horseshoe-shaped pillow from the overhead compartment. He offered it to Light, gesturing that he should put it around the back of his neck, and Light accepted. It made it a bit more comfortable to lean back against the seat, at least. "And we'll be busy not long after we arrive. You haven't been sleeping well the past few days, have you?"

Light shook his head, leaving it at that rather than admitting that he hadn't slept at all. Watari took a pill bottle out of his jacket pocket.

"Ryuzaki gave you these a few times shortly after your confinement ended, if I recall correctly." He held out the bottle so that Light could read the label, and sure enough, he recognized it immediately. He'd hated the idea of relying on any sort of medication, and still did, but sleeping had been all but impossible in the first couple weeks after he'd been let out of his cell. He'd accepted L's offer of a sedative out of desperation at first, and had only taken it a handful of times, but with twelve hours in this airplane ahead of him one way or another, and three days of exhaustion already wearing on him...

It seemed better than the alternative.

"I'll take it. Please," Light said. Watari disappeared into the minuscule bathroom for a moment and returned with a small cup of water, handing it to Light along with one of the pills. He took it with a quick word of gratitude, swallowing it down quickly.

Watari took a seat opposite and settled in with a book, and Light, mercifully, fell asleep in less than another fifteen minutes to nothing but the occasional sound of him flipping the pages. If he dreamed much at first, he didn't remember it, and perhaps that was for the best.

At some point they passed through a particularly bad bout of turbulence, and Light found himself jostled into a foggy half-awakeness, barely able to see clearly enough to make out Watari opposite him, or what was out the window, or anything but the cool silver metal of the handcuff cutting into his wrist...

He rubbed his eyes, trying to determine just what he was seeing, but a hand caught his wrist. A pale hand, a slender wrist in a white sleeve with a matching silver cuff...

The plane lurched violently and Light gasped. The hand's grip grew tighter. Afraid and desperately curious, he turned to his left to look.

L was seemingly rather comfortably perched in the next seat, wavy black hair falling over his face so only his nose and mouth were visible under the curtain of his bangs.

"Do try to stay calm, Yagami-kun. You're more likely to die from food poisoning than you are to die in a plane crash." L smirked, letting go of Light forearm. The handcuff was so tight he doubted it could be tighter, and the skin under it was raw, but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything but overwhelming _relief_ at the sight of L. "So you'd be smarter to be more afraid of your next meal than you are of this. It isn't as if you could just fall. Look out the window, Yagami-kun."

Light stared at his apparent traveling companion instead, thoroughly uninterested in his blurry view out the window when his sleep-addled mind was still trying to wrap itself around the idea that L had somehow defied death to join him here. Or was it that he'd died himself? He wasn't sure.

L clicked his tongue disapprovingly and turned Light's head towards the window. His hands, though Light hadn't noticed at first, were ice cold.

"What country do you suppose we're over now, Yagami-kun? Hmm, I suppose it doesn't matter. Kira's killed people just about everywhere. If there's one thing the world's still united on, it's what a monster he is... and what does matter is where you're going. England, isn't it? You know I lived there for a while." Though Light could tell just by their positions and the sound that L had to be speaking right into his ear, he couldn't feel any breath at all. "Five years. Think of all the places you'll go where I've been. All the spots where you'll walk in my footsteps. All the things you'll see that I've seen first. And you won't recognize any of them if Watari doesn't tell you."

Light tried to open his mouth to speak, but he wasn't nearly awake enough for anything to get past his lips but a noncommittal "mm" noise.

"And look—you can see the morning sun like this. Even on the off chance something goes wrong, would this be such a bad way to die, Yagami-kun? If your plane were to crash while you were sleeping. You wouldn't even feel a thing, just like me," L said, his knee digging into Light's back and pushing him closer to the window. "The last thing you'd see would be something beautiful, so dying like that should be fine. Nothing else in your mind but that bright morning sun."

Light shook his head, mumbling out some garbled attempt at words.

"Go back to sleep," L said, his voice morphing and changing as he spoke.

"Wha...?"

"Go back to sleep, Yagami-san," Watari said softly. The fuzzy red blur of the seat belt sign turned off overhead, and Light dreamed no more.

He woke up some time a little before they landed, but couldn't be coaxed into any state of actual alertness. After three solid days without sleep, apparently his body had decided that twelve hours was not enough to make up the deficit. It left him feeling sluggish and zombie-like, wavering in and out of sleep for the entirety of the drive from the airport in London to their eventual destination. He kept his window down the entire time, breathing in the cool air. Even with all the noise and smells of the city, it helped quite a bit, and the glimpses of scenery he got when his eyes happened to be open were interesting enough to keep his attention. He was faintly aware of Watari offering to stop for lunch at some point along the way, and though he had the feeling he'd refused, it seemed his answer either way didn't matter. He forced down half of the sandwich Watari put in his hands and tried to shake his inexplicable anxiety towards it.

"Yagami-san, while I can assure you that the people you'll be meeting are completely trustworthy," Watari began after what must have been almost two hours on the road, prompting Light to lift up his head and try to look properly alert, "it will be in your best interests to accustom yourself to not giving out your name. Especially with things as they are. You'll have a bit of time to think, of course, but please decide what you wish to be called."

Light didn't need to think about it for more than a moment, one word—and name, for that matter, he'd used it before even though it seemed infinitely distant—present in the front of his mind as soon as Watari finished speaking.

"Asahi," he said, and leaned his head against his hand again, eyes slipping shut. "Just call me Asahi."

They finally came to a stop in front of what, at first glance, looked like an old church. It only took a moment's observation for Light to make a more thorough judgment of its nature, however—a little over a dozen children of all ages were running around and playing on the grounds, dressed in casual attire rather than in a school uniform, and a plaque by the gates read, in English, "The Wammy's House."

A boarding school or an orphanage, most likely.

The children all seemed equally transfixed by Light and Watari as they passed through the courtyard, stopping in their activities and whispering among themselves. Light made eye contact with a freckle-faced girl who looked not much younger than him and forced himself to look away—only to catch sight of the same girl, apparently braver than her peers, standing and approaching Watari.

"Roger didn't tell us you were coming, Mr. Wammy," the girl said. Light blinked, confused for a mere second before processing that she was speaking to Watari. _Mr. Wammy. The Wammy's House. This school must be his, then, and that's why they're all reacting the way they are._ "Who's that with you?"

 _I'm right here,_ Light thought.

"This is Asahi, an associate of mine," Watari said, putting a hand on Light's shoulder. "I'm afraid we'll only be staying a few days at most."

The girl looked Light over from head to toe as if she were appraising a work of art, then gave a satisfied "hm" and let them go on their way.

It was far more clear that the building was a school of some sort once they were inside, little but the stained glass windows still giving the impression that it was, or had once been, a church. Some children lingered in the hallways, staring at Watari with their big wide eyes as he led Light through the hallways, while others could be glimpsed through windows in the doors of classrooms. Classes seemed rather disorganized, with no more than about five children in the busiest of them. One 'class' seemed to consist of a single very enthusiastic girl being lectured in theoretical physics by a man Light could swear he'd seen on television at least once.

They reached a quieter wing of the building after a few minutes, and Light guessed by its emptiness at the current hour and by the more homey look of the hallway that it must be some part of the dormitories. Watari showed him to a room at the very end of the hall and unlocked the door, opening it and gesturing that Light should go in. He obliged, rolling his suitcase in with him and setting it down by the door.

There was a thin layer of dust over all the plain wood furniture, and everything was neatly in order. The room looked like it had gone untouched for a very long time, and even the little trinkets atop the desk and dresser seemed strangely impersonal, like they didn't really belong to whoever had last stayed in this room. The small picture frames on the dresser were all empty, the books in the shelves showed no common interests and had several incomplete series and encyclopedia sets sitting out of order—it looked like a dressed set, more than anything.

It also had a chain lock on the inside of the door, along with the lock in the handle. Somehow, he got the impression that that extra level of security wasn't typical here.

"Feel free to unpack if you'd like, Asahi," Watari said. The name, Light thought, was going to take a bit of getting used to, but it fit better than other alias he could have picked. "There should be room in the dresser and the closet for your clothes. The bathroom is just down the hall; there's a sign, so you shouldn't have any difficulty finding it. I'll have to speak with the director, but I'll be back before too long—if there's any emergency, simply ask one of the children where Roger's office is. Someone will be able to take you there."

"Thank you, Watari."

Watari cast a long glance at him before he turned to leave, a shadow seeming to pass over his face, and Light realized somewhere in the back of his mind how much he'd just sounded like L.

Struggling against the desire to sleep, he stayed on his feet, pacing around the room and taking in the details of it. There were some toy soldiers atop the dresser that looked fascinatingly antique, perhaps from the 40s. The building itself seemed like it might be that old, but he doubted, based on the look of the repurposed interior, that the school was. He traced patterns in the dust and moved to the bookshelf. One of the incomplete encyclopedia sets was a Japanese collection on architecture he had the entirety of back in his bedroom at home, and he took out a volume and set it down on the desk to read later before he turned his attention back to the dresser, figuring he might as well take Watari's advice and unpack.

The drawer he first opened was filled with neatly folded white t-shirts. Light closed it immediately, his breath catching in his throat, and instead decided his first order of business should be to locate the bathroom Watari had told him was in this hallway.

 _All the things I'll see that he'd seen first, all the spots I'll walk in his footsteps... Was this L's room?_

"That's Lawrence's room," a rather perturbed sounding girl announced as Light stepped out into the hallway. There were a few other children with her, and one tugged on her arm, muttering something like 'just forget it, Linda.'

Linda, if that was her name, narrowed her eyes at light, hands tucked in the pockets of her pink sweatshirt.

"You're not Lawrence." Linda seemed quite thoroughly displeased with Light, and he had no interest in picking a fight with a girl who looked younger than Sayu. Curiosity drove him to speak nonetheless.

"Who's Lawrence?"

"You don't even _know?_ He's Mr. Wammy's nephew. He used to come here a lot more often... that's his room, and no one else is allowed in there, _ever_."

Light certainly didn't feel particularly intimidated by a small girl with pigtails, no matter how irritated she looked with him, but he had to commend her effort in looking menacing nonetheless.

"He came here with Mr. Wammy, Linda. Come _on,_ " one of the boys with Linda said, giving her arm another, more insistent tug. Linda frowned, but went along with him, not taking her eyes off Light as she did until there was a door between them.

 _Lawrence. Another fake name of L's, probably, if that room was even his... but he did say he lived in England... Mr. Wammy's nephew... Or maybe it's nothing to do with him._

He found the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face at the sink, stopping to look at himself in the mirror. It was still a little strange, seeing himself with no time spent on making himself look better. His hair was a mess, he looked almost sickly pale, the sleep he'd had on the plane had done nothing to lighten the darkness under his eyes...

He was starting to look like Ryuzaki, too. He supposed that was to be expected.

Light returned back to the room that apparently belonged to 'Lawrence', foregoing the dresser and instead picking up the book he'd set aside, lying down on the twin-sized bed to start reading.

He nodded off again before he made it through more than a page. Almost an hour had passed when Watari returned, and Light woke suddenly at the sound of the opening door. He sat up as quickly as he could, fumbling to shut the book that had been lying open on his chest and set it on the side table.

"I'm sorry to wake you," Watari said quietly, but Light shook his head, holding up a hand to stop the apology. It was his own doing, letting himself get so tired, and as tempting as it would be to try and sleep his life away now—he knew he couldn't. He pushed his bangs out of his face, standing from the bed as quickly as he could without being too unsteady on his feet. Watari was at his side to, as he seemed to be developing a habit of doing, put a hand on Light's arm, directing him towards the door.

"Come with me."

Letting Watari lead him places seemed to have made up most of what Light had done since the funeral, but there was hardly any choice in the matter even if, for some reason, he wanted to. He was a stranger here, an unfamiliar, unfitting face in the stained glass-lined halls and dorm rooms of Wammy's House, out of place in England in the first place. But there was something he was needed for here, and that meant following Watari's lead. They walked for another few minutes to an empty office at the other end of the building. Aside from an old oak bookshelf filled with books, an expensive looking rug and a few old maps lining the walls, the room had barely anything in it that could catch Light's eye, but it still seemed remarkably more lived in than 'Lawrence's' dorm room. This, he supposed, must be the director's office, lacking its director.

That absence didn't last long, however, as in a matter of minutes, a frail-looking gentleman with a morose expression entered the room with two children. He had one, an angry-looking blonde boy in black clothes, by the arm, and the other, a little slip of a child with a mop of white hair clad in white pajamas, walking behind him and gingerly carrying a puzzle.

The blonde immediately broke free of the old man's grip and stood straight-backed as a soldier at the sight of Watari, while the other barely glanced at him and immediately flopped down on the floor, setting down the puzzle and beginning to put plain white pieces in place. The man—Roger, Light figured—sat down at his desk, steepling his fingers and sighing.

"Mr. Wammy, sir," the blonde boy said, all false decorum. "If you don't mind my asking—"

"It's something to do with L," the other child interrupted. Light found himself disconcerted with how much that voice reminded him of Ryuzaki's, in tone and intonation... like a copy that was just the slightest bit off. "He would have said so before long if you'd been patient, Mello."

'Mello' certainly didn't take kindly to that, casting a rather impressive glare at the other child. Light shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not sure where to look.

"Near is correct," Watari said, gaze moving from Light to Roger, then to the two children.

"He is? What are you saying, then?" The politeness was gone from Mello's voice in an instant, confusion and concern sweeping in. Light could picture his expression without seeing it, but he couldn't stop himself from looking either way. "Did something happen to L?"

Light watched Watari's face fall, watched Roger close his eyes and sigh again, as if this conversation was giving him a headache, watched Near, unmoved, set another piece down on his puzzle.

It was Roger who broke the silence.

"L is dead."

Light wondered if those words would ever stop hurting to hear.

"Dead?" Mello darted towards Roger's desk, slamming his hands down on the surface and leaning into his space. "How? Why?"

Watari cleared his throat, gently pulling Mello back. Mello smacked his hand away, then immediately froze, adopting his stiff soldier-like posture again. If he was a dog, he'd have his tail between his legs.

"I-I mean," he stammered. "Was it Kira?"

Light swallowed hard, pressing his thumb firmly against his wrist to distract himself.

"No," Watari answered after a pause that was far too long for Light's liking. "It seems that it was a natural death. Tragic, but not murder."

Near continued his puzzle at an even pace, but Light realized after a moment that his huge black eyes were fixed on him, something searching in them. He looked away.

"But he said he was going to have Kira executed," Mello insisted, his composure slipping away again. "He said he was going to have Kira executed—and now he's dead. Is that what you're saying?"

Roger sighed again, an act which Light was beginning to suspect was a very common occurrence. "Mello..."

"So what? People die every day," Near cut in, eyes not leaving Light. The steady clicking of him setting his puzzle pieces into place continued, despite the fact that one of his hands was occupied with twirling his hair around his finger. "Wanting to blame Kira just because it gives you someone to be mad at is pretty pathetic."

Light wasn't sure if he flinched himself or if Mello's was just so visceral that he may as well have felt it. The room fell back into near-silence, Mello staring with eyes like a deer in the headlights, Near finishing his puzzle, a single black L on a plain white backdrop, and dumping it out onto the floor again to start over.

When Mello began to speak again, his voice was trembling. "Then, between Near and I... who did L..."

"Neither of you." Despite yet another long sigh, Roger looked, to Light, genuinely quite apologetic. "The situation is... complicated. Quillish, if you could..."

"Before L's death, he was working closely with a number of trusted individuals," Watari said. _Trustworthy individuals and me,_ Light thought bitterly. "Asahi..."

He pointed to Light.

"...was L's closest assistant and ally. They were working together quite intimately on the Kira investigation, and the day before L passed, he specifically requested that if he were to die, Asahi would be the one to inherit the title of L and carry on in his place."

Mello looked like he'd taken a blow from a blunt object. Near, though his face was still impassive, put down the puzzle piece and finally stopped clicking them into place.

Light found himself struck with the unshakable impression that he'd done something very, _very_ wrong.

"So it was all for nothing?" It wasn't just Mello's voice that was shaking, now. Shoulders hunched, he looked down, hair falling in his face, and Light could see him clenching his fists so hard his knuckles turned white. "Did L even care about us? Everything we were doing?"

"Mello, you and Near are still young. In a few years, once you've graduated—"

"Forget it, Roger. It's fine. Near was first in line to succeed L. If he wants to stay here and cooperate with _him,_ " Mello spat that word, _him,_ like a curse, straightening up with the emotion fading from his face, "he should be the one to do it. He'll be more useful to the new L, anyway. I'll just get in the way."

He turned on his heels, stomping towards the door out of Roger's office with surprising purpose in his movements.

"I'm getting out of this orphanage," he announced. Roger stood from his seat, looking to Watari for direction that Watari seemed unprepared to give.

"Mello," Roger started, but Mello didn't even slow down.

"Back off, Roger. I'll be fifteen before long—I'll live my own way."

And before anyone could say another word, Mello was out the door. Near picked up his puzzle and stood as well, free hand twirling a lock of hair again. His eyes, as deep and black and odd-looking as L's had been, bored holes into Light.

"I'll stay here, then. If L trusted you, certainly you'll capture Kira in no time at all," he said, ice cold. "Besides, someone should be prepared in case you die too. But, if you're still alive when I've graduated from this place... I _suppose_ it'll be my pleasure to work with you, second L."

Near smiled a tight-lipped smile and turned to leave, giving no acknowledgment to Watari or Roger. Light glanced between the two of the, hoping that either of them might offer up some sort of explanation. Roger sighed what must have been his fifth or sixth sigh of this single conversation and retook his seat behind the desk.

"Mr. Asahi, the students at this school are... _extraordinary_ children. They've been selected from all around the world to be trained in their choice of disciplines so that they can reach their full potential, and those who have an aptitude for solving crimes and mysteries are chosen as..."

"Potential successors to the title of 'L'," Watari finished, distinctly less regretful in tone than Roger. "Near and Mello are the brightest in terms of academics, and attracted the attention of Ryuzaki himself not long ago. At the time, he said that with no further information to base his decision on, he would pick the two of them as his successors."

"Then why me?" Light asked, the words forming faster than he was consciously thinking about then. "In that case, Near should be the one to take over, shouldn't he?"

"Ryuzaki never once spoke to Near and Mello directly. He saw their faces among a crowd of children on a single occasion, and Roger told him that they were the two highest scoring students. All L had to judge Near and Mello's capabilities on was a fleeting impression and their academic transcripts. It's no exaggeration to say that I, myself, am perhaps the only other person alive who ha gave Ryuzaki more opportunity for thorough study of character, and in those months L knew you, you proved yourself as an investigator first-hand." Watari sounded so _earnest,_ even switching to Japanese to make sure he was fully understood, that Light almost believed it couldn't be completely genuine, like it would be _too much_ if it was—but he had that fatherly look on his face again, the one that hit Light like a punch to the gut when he saw it. _I met L when he was a very small child. I never could have predicted I'd live to bury him_. "And after all that, Ryuzaki chose you—a decision I believe was based on a very sound assessment of your abilities, Asahi. Believe me when I say that I would have felt no guilt in telling you if I felt you weren't capable. Do you understand?"

Speechless, and moved despite himself, Light nodded.

"That isn't to say I underestimate Near's abilities," Watari continued, smiling good-naturedly and showing Light to the door. "If the time comes that the two of you are able to work together as a team, I think you could make Ryuzaki very proud."

"I hope so," Light said, moving to rub his wrist—and stopping himself before he used enough pressure to cause any pain.

 _Maybe this won't always have to hurt. Maybe I really will make Ryuzaki proud._


End file.
